Gendering European welfare states and citizenship: revisioning inequalities

The chapter revisits the feminist scholarship on gendering of European welfare states and European citizenship, and reflects on the effects of globalization, Europeanization and migration. It first presents feminist perspectives on the liberal, the conservative and the social democratic welfare regimes. Next it examines the changes in European welfare states and citizenship during the past 25 years influenced by increased immigration. It proposes intersectionality as an analytical approach to study the effects of the interplay of various welfare, citizenship and migration or integration policies on gender, class, ethnicity or race, and nationality. One issue is what has been the effect of the European emphasis on women’s wage work and gender equality policies for women in different European countries? Another issue concerns how multiple discrimination is tackled and institutionalized in European welfare states. A third issue is to what extent the Nordic welfare states still represent an attractive alternative model of social and gender equality to neo-liberalism. The final part discusses feminist approaches to reframe gender equality and gender justice from the transnational European contexts.